A Benevolent Evil Dragon

A week is not a long time, but since I am no longer forced to sleep most of the day away I ended up being rather productive. To my relief, Edith is a quick learner and her memory is pretty good, so despite having only a few hours to learn she memorized the Vernian alphabet and rough rules, which I memorized in turn and used to read through the books at an alarming rate. I don't know when I started being so good at parallel thinking, but if I don't do anything other than read, I can read two pages at once with my eyes only needing to glance over the word for the information to connect seamlessly in my mind.

It's weird, but useful. I read through most magic books and the scroll that mapped out the southern part of the Kingdom of Kaminsk. Now that I have proper knowledge of human magic I can fully confirm it. I cannot use this. Every version of human magic I have come across in these books uses some basic principles that resemble dragon magic, but if you mix them you see the contrast. I can speak the words, use the mana, but it doesn't work. My heart is fundamentally different from a core, and to top it all off, I can't pray without getting smitten, my heart makes having pure mana impossible and all the other versions are strictly meant for people without talent. I also have finally gotten a straight answer for what makes someone a sorcerer.

Humans in this world are born with extra organs. The one I knew about was the core, but on top of it they have a second set of veins, or maybe it's more like a second nervous system. It acts like circuits for mana, something that my organic veins already do. I am also pretty sure that these vessels are at least partially metaphysical, because I accidentally gave Edith the equivalent of a pinched nerve mixed with a twisted vein when I tried guiding mana through them to clear them. Either way, a healthy set of this network of mana veins is what lets one be a sorcerer in the first place, since most people are born with them partially formed or even missing altogether. The best way to make sure your kid has them is to train yourself in a borderline torturous way, which makes one a knight. A couple generations of this result in a bloodline of sorcerers, which explains the nobles to some degree.

Edith, for some reason, got lucky and fits the requirements. She has these veins and they're fully formed, but they're also rotten, shriveled and clogged as nobody trained her to use them. It does explain her experience of being able to just pour out mana faster and easier than the other girls she knew, she just lacked a good teacher that could deal with her talent and dangerous aptitudes. Thankfully, the book on fire sorcery was exactly what she needed. Much like what Meredith said about her own book, this one was a guide for both the mind and the body. It was a slow mix of methods, but at some point she would be able to fix up her spellcasting and no longer be forced to use the chaos rune. Its presence could still be a problem eventually, but let's cross that bridge first.

Speaking of it, I tried figuring it out whenever we had time and I was bored of reading, but it is clear that I am nowhere near knowledgeable or capable enough to fix this. I at least understand exactly what happens with it and why, but I can't go beyond that. The rune acts like it's playing snake, the head following the pattern, but not being anywhere near long enough to actually finish the spell, which causes her hand to be stuck in its most perfect form while the damage is recorded underneath the half-illusion, half-reality warping effect. When she casts magic, the snake bathes in fire mana and takes on a fire inspired shape, causing the random modifiers to her spells, and making her arm revert while the rune stops doing its particular dance. Once that is done, the rune goes back into its normalcy and forcibly fixes her hand again.

It's weird, but knowing what destabilizes it is more than enough, especially since this means just being in a high mana density area could make her revert. My only idea right now would be to pour mana into it and finish the shape, but that could have all sorts of effects that I don't foresee, so for now we're keeping it unstable. It's better than waking up with her arm vanishing when the magic decides the best way to keep her hand from not being hurt is to remove it. Damn AI mentality…

The wagon shakes and my entire body falls, only my head and the book I am reading are immune to the movement, the former because of my bird anatomy, the latter because I'm levitating it using nature magic. I take a peek outside and see Edith struggling with the horses. The path here is paved with cobblestone, which the horses seem unused to, at least for the first five minutes. I take in our surroundings and almost fall backwards as I see people walking parallel to us some way's away. I hiss and Edith finally notices me.

"Ah, go back in! Sorry, I didn't think you would try to come out now, you've been reading and rereading that book on known mage types for almost half a day now." She eyes the group, while trying to make herself look bigger to hide me.

I do pull back, but only after getting a full view of them. Six men, with two pulling and two pushing, while the other two seem to watch their surroundings. The only thing on the wagon is a massive corpse, bigger than my own even, of a sort of half bull half lizard creature. They're far enough away that my mana sight and sense fail, so I don't know if there's a meal to be had… alright, I am hungry, good to know. I frown, but just nibble on some of the dry jerky to quench the desire for now.

"I want to be prepared for the next time we inevitably fight mages. People that force their will upon the natural order, people that can channel miracles that defy reality, people that can empower themselves to match the toughest of witchbeasts and even scholars that can use pure mana, archaic runic formations and engraved magic circles coupled with vast wealth to quite literally do anything they want so long as they know every underlying principle. I need to know how to deal with these possible pests. As for me coming out, the vehicle shook so I wanted to see if there was a problem. Luckily the only problem is people being nearby. Unluckily, I see we are almost there."

Despite being inside, my eyes still peek right in front of us. The town, no, city is massive. Apparently this is the proper powerhouse in the southern part of this kingdom. While Count Bajor's town down south is the target of imperial trade, things need to get here in order to reach the rest of the kingdom. More direct routes are too unsafe to be profitable, after all. Or at least that's what these books say. Whatever problems come from it later will be all worth it considering how much raw information I got from robbing Jan.

"Damn… They're keeping an eye on me…" Edith waves over at the men, then keeps her eyes trained forward. "I don't know if you can slip by now… Twenty minutes or so before we reach the line and then you really won't be able to go away… Are you sure about this?" I hear the worry in her tone, but this is needed.

The city, Zielenec, is not only huge, but it has large stone walls and going by the thing those men killed, it is likely that there's some source of mana around here somewhere, so they have soldiers looking out for anything weird. I can't slip in and out of the city continuously. I only need to mess up once for things to get dicey… As much as letting Edith go in by herself is an option, I can't. I talked to her about it and from the way her shoulders trembled slightly I realized that she's as afraid of being away from me as I am of being away from her. We have different reasons, but they boil down to the same truth: we only have each other. So, I am going in.

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I organize the back, as well as I can, then wait for the time to pass. It takes some half hour for soldiers to finally get to Edith and I smile, giving a hopeful prayer to nobody in particular. We debated this a while, but ended up sticking to the sorcerer story. Compared to our first, stupid attempt, this time we have much better chances. We're not going to turn in any sort of quest to the local nobleman, she has actual accessories and clothes, her demeanor hardened after the bullshit Jan threw our way and her magic already shows improvements. Just realizing that she is worthy of demanding things from magic instead of begging has done wonders for her normal spellcasting.

"You're new. Name, origin, occupation and purpose of your visit? Documents and identifying items would also be appreciated. If you have merchandise I need to inspect it." The man, some 30 something soldier, sounded bored as he went through the motions, to the point where he didn't even notice Edith's worry at the mention of the cargo inspection.

"Edith Feur, I come from Colditz, down in the south of the Vernian Empire." She raises her left hand, flashing the beautiful fire gem ring, and then makes a small flame appear on her fingertips. "I am a mercenary, and I am traveling and looking for work. I have some tanned leather on me, some witchbeast material and some books that I may or may not part with. I will see."

The man was clearly taken aback by the display of magic, but quickly seemed more alert. "Ah, I see. Well equipped…" I could feel his gaze move down to the ornate sword resting by Edith's side, likely imagining her as a masterful blade dancing sorceress from the high and mighty center of civilization. "I do still need to inspect your wagon, and it would do wonders for you to at least get accredited with the local garrison chief. He handles mercenaries and the like."

The man walked around the back, Edith, worried, following right behind him. Two soldiers hold the back open, and suddenly the entire place is revealed to them. The man's eyes go over the leather and furs, then over the claws, fangs and bones of a particularly large bear witchbeast, then he came in and looked at the sacks. One having some silver and copper, another having a handful of books, some clothes and other personal items. For a moment he looks at the simple bed, checking under it, then sighs and gets out, looking sheepish as he faces a frowning Edith.

"Even my bedding, right in front of my eyes. How zealous of you, simple men." And that is why you read literature, kiddos. Already her vocabulary starts sounding more noble like.

"I apologize, smugglers have been a rising problem and…" The soldier, to his credit, looks actually ashamed, or at least afraid.

"Good day, sir." Her words are cold and dismissive, exactly what was needed to get rushed through.

Not even a minute after we got inside, she stops and peeks inside, straining her eyes, until they are suddenly met with mine, which opens just as the unnatural darkness around me vanishes. She smiles and gives me a sigh of relief, which I return by making a proud thrilling noise. The fact that we stopped and hired a carpenter to make that second floor for the wagon that I was thinking of turned out to be a great investment. Most books and the actually valuable stuff was hiding there, and if not for Edith pretending to be a noble, I figure they would have tried to check for such a thing.

"I told you it would work. Light magic, always undervalued, or simply used erroneously." I say, flashing a toothy grin, looking more like a shark than a dragon.

I play with the rune, which is a small marvel. I tried doing this before with light mana, and while I could make a one way light wall by pouring a lot of power and focus on one rune, it would be a wall, not a blob. Mix light and darkness, make one handle the shape of the darkness while the other makes sure light still gets through but not out, and suddenly you have bootleg invisibility. Really, it's more like a "shadow veil" but it will work for my needs. It's not absurdly costly, and I can mix it with my sound magic to make myself basically undetectable. Right up until I meet someone that sees mana, or has a torch pointed my way, but that's a problem for another day…

With that, we get right back to the road, slowly moving through the streets. I hold up the darkness, but to a lesser degree as I stare out from the back. The place is actually really beautiful, and a touch more modern than I expected. It's mostly two and three story buildings, filled with artisan shops, dense housing and overall what you'd expect from a big town like this. There were clearly plenty of people working outside the walls, be it on the fields or on a nearby quarry, or even as hunters for the occasional witchbeast.

The most impressive thing I saw the entire way to the inn was a high class butcher shop, not for the building's artistry, but because of the enchanted freeze shelf the butcher had. It shone a bright icy blue even through the building, clearly a well made magical circle, the work of a proper wizard.

The inn we reached was even more impressive, being taller than anything around. It even had its own plot of land meant exclusively for wagons and the like. There were a few dotted around town, but we were sent to this one in particular because it was made for lesser nobles, something Edith clearly qualified as in the eyes of many. Surprisingly, unlike with Jan, this time it was clear that nobody noticed anything odd about her. She got herself a room, made sure she had privacy by splurging on their top room, then sighed as she looked down at the world from her balcony on the fourth floor.

"Worried? Pleased?" I noticed her looking down my way, but she couldn't even fake a smile.

"Surviving on berries, charred meat and sometimes bark soup, then sitting in a rather normal inn, eating good food, then being at a noble's table, then sleeping on a wooden board, on the harsh road, and now I sit here, on the top of a building I would not even dream of looking at, much less living in it… It's exhausting…" She ran her hand through her hair, the shine catching my eye.

"I understand. We're not safe. Even now you are surrounded by people that would turn on you in a moment. We might never be safe and the thought hangs over you like a guillotine, but you fear you're being unfair and greedy, since you are living better than ever." She laughs loud enough that I think even the people on the street can hear, but she needs that.

"You read minds, huh." She whispers, almost to herself.

"I do not. I just know people. I know emotions and how unfair they are. Thoughts and how abusive they get when you let them. I would say I am older than you in mind and memory, even if my body isn't." I think that for the first time she believes me.

"If you say so... The sun is setting. I think I need a good sleep… And, maybe one day you'll trust me enough to tell me exactly what your magic has done to you to make your mind work like this…" In a rare moment of pure honesty, she threw a knife straight to the heart of the problem.

"I trust you now. I do still fear what your reactions could be… but I trust you." She gives me that tired smile again, but doesn't say anything. She doesn't push, but doesn't pull back either. She looks at me, clearly noticing the patch of darkness.

I, much to my shame, stay quiet. She eventually goes back inside, before I manage to make up my mind. I trust her, I do, but the second I tried, once I did make up my mind my magic fizzled out. Chaos seeped out of me, slapping at the spell and breaking it. After that, no matter how much I tried, I failed to make that particular spell.

Time for some library time, because this was not normal.